Child welfare: Family connections more stable for displaced kids

The Oregonian story "The painful rules of child welfare: Jesse Tarter, the only dad two young boys ever knew, is kept away as relatives take over care" (Nov. 30) was compelling and highlighted the very difficult decisions made every day in the child welfare system. There are laws that provide parameters for our work and rules that provide direction for how to manage the complex nature of human relationships when children are involved in unsafe situations.

In the area of permanent placement for children who cannot be returned to their legal parents, what is required by law and what is best for children lead to the same conclusion: Children who enter the foster care system and cannot be returned to their legal parents do better and have better long-term outcomes when they can be placed with their relatives. Kinship care is as old as humankind, and family connections are truly deep in our DNA.

In the past, Oregon legislators heard from constituents that too many children were being placed in foster care or in adoption/guardianship with strangers, rather than family members. In 2007, a bipartisan bill significantly strengthened Oregon's law and required the Department of Human Services to make diligent efforts to find a child's relatives and give preference to relatives over others in the case. Today, 38 percent of children in foster care are living with relatives, up from 24 percent just two years ago.

Why should we care about and support these family connections? The answer is that children do better when they are cared for by relatives. Oregon has thousands of wonderful and caring foster and adoptive families who have taken children into their homes and lives, but when that love and care can come from a family member, children have many additional benefits.

Children in the care of relatives have more stability and fewer changes than those children placed with non-relatives. Instability creates stress for children, and a child who has been removed from home and parents, most often because of neglect or abuse, has already suffered trauma. Change and uncertainty can compound that trauma, and over time can lead to serious and long-lasting problems in behavior, school performance and emotional and physical health.

Another very important benefit of relative care is that it continues cultural and religious traditions that may be lost in non-kinship care. Relatives continue the important access to ethnic, racial and cultural traditions. This is important for all families, but it is especially important for children from communities of color. Native American children have a long and painful history of being placed with non-relatives to erase their cultural ties. It is true for many other children that their ethnic, racial and cultural traditions and identifications were not valued in a meaningful way when making permanent placements. DHS is committed to changing this, and relative care is an important piece of that effort.

Oregon's legal definition of relative is very expansive and has placement preferences with a child's relatives within that definition, including registered domestic partners, step-parents, those considered as a relative by the tribal law or custom, and other non-traditional definitions. But there are still situations, such as the one described in the Nov. 30 news story, where the legal requirements that provide an individual with rights in a child's life are not addressed and others' rights take precedence.

DHS workers and federal and state law recognize that, whenever possible, if children cannot live with their parents, then relative care is the best option. While there will always be painful and heart-wrenching stories to tell, the reality is that relative connections for children should be preserved and protected in Oregon because it's better for children and families.

Lois Ann Day is the director of the Oregon Department of Human Services Child Welfare Program.